Kyle,
As I mentioned the other day, I couldn't disagree more with your assessment, as well as Ryan's.
It is as much a seminal, groundbreaking work that led to many people's interest in golf course architecture over the past 30 years as the work(s) of Cornish and Whitten, where they basically tried to chronicle the design history of every golf course on the planet.
They failed in their grand goal, they made mistakes, but ultimately they started many of us on an amazing search to uncover the past and dig up the true stories of the men (and sometimes women) responsible for the playing fields of the game.
In the case of Confidential Guide, please cite for me another time in the history of the game where a young student of the art searches the globe in pursuit of learning the best that the game has to offer.
His trips to lands and courses far and wide made what CB Macdonald, Dev Emmett, and Hugh Wilson did look like a high school field trip.
You might disagree with some of his course assessments, and much like the C&W tome, nitpick some misses here and there, but I'm planning to go to Oregon later this year and I can tell you the first place I looked to see what might be of worth and/or historic value was the Confidential Guide.
I think you guys might be too young to appreciate a world where finding out anything and everything about a course was as simple as starting a post on GolfClubAtlas seeking insight, but the value of the book is clearly reflected in the price, and it's not just because Doak is some kind of Beyonce of Bunkers.